Published: 20/09/2024
Updated: 24/09/2024
One of the few memorials left in St Denis’s, East Hatley after the building was restored in the late 1800s by William Butterfield was a stone floor-slab with brasses commemorating James and Katherine Docwra. Sadly, the only brass that remains today is ‘Katherine’, now moved to a neighbouring church for safe-keeping, but the indented stone remains in St Denis’s.
James died in 1495, Katherine in about 1535 after a second marriage. They had two children, both of whom married well: John to Anne St. George from the village next-door, scion of a family that had owned that village since the 1200s, and Elizabeth, after a short first marriage, to Thomas Chicheley of Wimpole.
The couple themselves were not of aristocratic stock. Katherine was a Hasilden, a local girl whose family came south from Yorkshire with John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster — her father, Thomas Hasilden, being Controller of the Duke’s household. The Hasildens prospered here, becoming MPs and sizeable land-owners. They were not that popular with the natives, however — in 1381 Thomas’s house was trashed and the contents of his barns stolen in the Peasants’ Revolt — one of only two such events in this area.
St John’s Gate, the remains of the Clerkenwell Priory
The Docwras were sheep farmers from near Kendal, and it is thought that a younger son was sent south to set up a base for trading at Cambridge’s huge Stourbridge Fair.
James’s younger brother Thomas was to make the name Docwra famous. He signed up at the age of 16 as a Knight of St John, a member of an international military religious organization fighting in the Mediterranean and Middle East to make Jerusalem, and the route there, safe for Christian pilgrims. They had a preceptory, a regional base, at Shingay, between Hatley and Royston, where Thomas may have been stationed for a while. He quickly rose through the ranks, serving in Rhodes and Turkey, to become the English branch’s leader, its Prior in Clerkenwell. This was an important post, with a seat at Parliament as a Premier Baron of England. Sir Thomas Docwra was an advisor on foreign affairs and naval matters to both Kings Henry VII and Henry VIII, and a colleague of Cardinal Wolsey.
As a cleric, Thomas could not marry, but he was very close to his brother’s family, granting his nephew John the use of a Knights’ estate near Hitchin and providing his niece Elizabeth with a dowry. When it became clear to him that Henry VIII was eyeing the Clerkenwell treasury’s considerable contents prior to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Thomas, now old and infirm, sent for various relatives and supporters, and dispatched them with cartloads of precious goods and valuable documents, telling them to keep them, whatever happened.
When Thomas died, and the next and final Prior discovered the loss, great efforts were made to re-imburse the Priory. The family, he said, had clearly taken advantage of a sick old man. The case went on for years, with Cardinal Wolsey personally involved. Some money was recouped from the main recipients — John Docwra, Elizabeth’s husband Thomas Chicheley, Katherine’s brother and a Hasilden cousin — but they seem to have come out of the affair rather richer than before, nevertheless. No doubt the gossip in Hatley would have been considerable. Villagers might well have met the opulently-clad Thomas when he visited his brother.
Sir Thomas Docwra, dressed as a soldier in full armour, with shield displaying the Cross of the Order of St John and mantle displaying the Cross of Malta, with naval scene behind, under a strapwork arch. Engraving by William Rogers, c. 1595/1602 (British Museum, London; Public Domain, via Wikipedia)
Katherine also benefitted from the lifetime use of a house in Pytchley, Northamptonshire, given to her by her mother’s brother, who was from the locally important Cheyney family. She settled there with her second husband, Ralph Lane, well away from the gossipers.
With thanks to Peter Denby for the photograph of Katherine Docwra's brass. This Story was first published on the FoFC website in 2020.
